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A few coasters at Hersheypark
Aug. 25th, 2011 01:28 amWe visited Hersheypark yesterday, at the tail end of a road trip. Hersheypark has many amazing roller coasters, both steel and wooden. But our schedule only permitted a single day, the lines were actually kind of long for a weekday, Sam wasn't feeling so well for much of the afternoon (she was better today), and we had 5-year-old Jorie with us, so I only got to ride three. (Admittedly, I probably would not have been hardcore enough to ride many more.)
( Fahrenheit, Trailblazer, sooperdooperLooper )
When I got off the Looper, things started getting confusing: Sam's mother called her up in the sky ride queue worried about the earthquake, Sam texted me about it, and I spent way too much time trying to contact my various relatives by phone in the face of clogged circuits, cellular/wifi dead spots (Hersheypark consists of a network of loosely connected nodes separated by hills), and the overwhelming roaring of the Great Bear with its resonant box supports.
Eventually I worked out that email was the way to go, and soon figured out that nothing particularly dire had happened to anyone. At that point we went for some ice cream, and Sam came down with a nasty headache that kept her from wanting to do anything but sit in an air-conditioned quiet solitary place, like the car. I hope her earlier hunger while I'd been standing in the Fahrenheit queue didn't bring it on.
So, under worse circumstances than I'd wanted, I had Jorie for the rest of the day and could not coaster any more. I'd planned on doing this at some point anyway so that Sam could have some big-ride fun, but I was sorry Sam didn't get that. Anyway, Jorie and I had plenty more fun together. At one point we rode the Dry Gulch Railroad, the park's cheeseball-Western-themed steam train; Jorie pointed to the Trailblazer's tracks and said "What's that?" and I got to impress her with the fact that she'd ridden it already. At the end of our day we went to the Chocolate World attraction outside the park gates and rode the free "tour", a bizarre dark ride vaguely simulating the process of chocolate-making, only with animatronic singing cows (they'd added those since the Seventies). Jorie pronounced it "awesome".
I'd like to go back. Megan has suggested going on a joint trip with her family next season; that's probably the way to go, with more adults around to watch children and handle contingencies (and people to ride coasters with!) I didn't get to ride any of the park's beloved woodies, and Megan loves those. And then there's Skyrush...
( Fahrenheit, Trailblazer, sooperdooperLooper )
When I got off the Looper, things started getting confusing: Sam's mother called her up in the sky ride queue worried about the earthquake, Sam texted me about it, and I spent way too much time trying to contact my various relatives by phone in the face of clogged circuits, cellular/wifi dead spots (Hersheypark consists of a network of loosely connected nodes separated by hills), and the overwhelming roaring of the Great Bear with its resonant box supports.
Eventually I worked out that email was the way to go, and soon figured out that nothing particularly dire had happened to anyone. At that point we went for some ice cream, and Sam came down with a nasty headache that kept her from wanting to do anything but sit in an air-conditioned quiet solitary place, like the car. I hope her earlier hunger while I'd been standing in the Fahrenheit queue didn't bring it on.
So, under worse circumstances than I'd wanted, I had Jorie for the rest of the day and could not coaster any more. I'd planned on doing this at some point anyway so that Sam could have some big-ride fun, but I was sorry Sam didn't get that. Anyway, Jorie and I had plenty more fun together. At one point we rode the Dry Gulch Railroad, the park's cheeseball-Western-themed steam train; Jorie pointed to the Trailblazer's tracks and said "What's that?" and I got to impress her with the fact that she'd ridden it already. At the end of our day we went to the Chocolate World attraction outside the park gates and rode the free "tour", a bizarre dark ride vaguely simulating the process of chocolate-making, only with animatronic singing cows (they'd added those since the Seventies). Jorie pronounced it "awesome".
I'd like to go back. Megan has suggested going on a joint trip with her family next season; that's probably the way to go, with more adults around to watch children and handle contingencies (and people to ride coasters with!) I didn't get to ride any of the park's beloved woodies, and Megan loves those. And then there's Skyrush...